How to Check the Version of C#

Today in this article, we shall see how to check which version of C# your Application is using.

We will see various easy-to-use techniques to verify the version. The below techniques can be used to verify the version on your developer machines or build a machine or cloud server.

You may find the need to check the C# version on the hosted application or server or in a cloud container etc.

We will cover the below aspects in the article,

Please note that as per recent guidelines from Microsoft default version of C# used by the application will be driven by the underlying .NET framework used (This is true for .NET or .NET Core framework used).

Get C# Version using Command line (Windows/Linux/MacOS)

Using any Shell or CLI ex. Visual Studio Command prompt:

Command

csc /langversion:?

C# compiler determines a default language version based on your project’s target framework. The target project when built gets the highest compatible language version by default as per this versioning semantics.

Get C# Version using #Error Directive

One can use the below directive to verify the c# language version.

Just type the below command anywhere in .cs file and mouse hover on it

Command

#error version

Check .NET Core version- SDK and Runtime version Programmatically

Additionally, if you are interested in knowing what version of .NET Core or framework is installed please follow the techniques discussed below,

Command

dotnet --list-sdks

For more details on the commands, please visit the below article,

• How to Check .NET Core version installed SDK and Runtime

C# Version using Visual Studio – Option is disabled now

Previously it used to be easy to find C# vesion by navigating the Project- Properties-> Build tab.

However as per new guidelines (explained below).. The visual studio above option is disabled.

As per Microsoft guidelines

Moving forward, however, each version of each framework will have a single supported and default version, and we won’t support arbitrary versions. To reflect this change in support, this commit permanently disables the language version combo box and adds a link to a document explaining the change.

So if using .NET or .NET Core then the framework will always target only a single language version and which will also be a default version.

The default version will be a major version of C#.

So with the above guidelines Visual Studio option to check or update the C# language version is disabled.

Project > Properties > Build > Advanced option is disabled.

Check all supported C# versions to date

Please visit the below Microsoft list,

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/configure-language-version#c-language-version-reference

How to Target specific version

If you need to change or target your application to use a particular C# language version, then there are various approaches to achieve this. Please refer to the below article,

• How to Enable C# Language Versioning – Guidelines

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